


to whatever end

by kay_emm_gee



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Throne of Glass Fusion, F/M, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 08:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13244874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: Daenerys traced the pattern of the tile roof with the tips of her fingers as the sun beat down on her. It was as sweltering today, on top of this building inside Sunspear, as it had been outside the city gates two weeks ago. She could barely stand it. King’s Landing had been hot in the summer, but not to this muggy degree. Condensation seemed to drip off every surface–glass, ceramic, stone, skin. Slaves, the rich, and the poor all sweated alike here, a great equalizer that everyone noticed and the privileged ignored.Her fists clenched as a different sort of heat rose up inside of her. Resentment and anger and bitterness flickered to life, and it took Dany several deep breaths to put those flames out. They would not do her any good here, because she could not do any good here, or anywhere, not anymore.Not after Drogo.Not after Irri, not after Selmy.The dead were with her always, and they made her forget about the living.





	to whatever end

**Author's Note:**

> As part of the Game of Thrones Secret Santa Exchange 2017, I wrote this fic for the lovely tumblr user @acourtofhopeanddreams, since the Throne of Glass series seemed to also be one for her favorites. So here's an AU of Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass Series, SJMaas) for Jon/Daenerys :)

Daenerys traced the pattern of the tile roof with the tips of her fingers as the sun beat down on her. It was as sweltering today, on top of this building inside Sunspear, as it had been outside the city gates two weeks ago. She could barely stand it. King’s Landing had been hot in the summer, but not to this muggy degree. Condensation seemed to drip off every surface–glass, ceramic, stone, skin. Slaves, the rich, and the poor all sweated alike here, a great equalizer that everyone noticed and the privileged ignored.

Her fists clenched as a different sort of heat rose up inside of her. Resentment and anger and bitterness flickered to life, and it took Dany several deep breaths to put those flames out. They would not do her any good here, because  _she_  could not do any good here, or anywhere, not anymore.

Not after Drogo.

Not after Irri, not after Selmy.

The dead were with her always, and they made her forget about the living. She knew this, and she did not give a damn. Missandei had begged to go with her on this mission, but Dany had refused. She would be safer with Jorah and Grey Worm. Safer far away from her.

Reaching for the pouch at her side, she flipped the cap open and closed, open and closed. Finally, she sighed through her chapped lips and raised the pouch to her mouth. The wine stung her dry throat and tasted sour, but she drank every last drop regardless. It didn’t take long for the drink to work, and despite the heat and brightness around her, she slipped into a deep but restless sleep.

When she woke, it was dusk. Dany sat up and wiped the grit from her eyes, listening to the darker parts of the city begin to stir. Sunspear was like a pot of water, heated by flame all day until it erupted into a violent boil at night. She enjoyed stirring that pot, which was why she had a bruise on her chin and a split lip. What tavern she had fought in, and whom she had fought, she could not remember. She did not care to remember what she had done the night before. All that mattered was where she would find her next drink and meal tonight.

Dirt crunched under her boots when she jumped down onto the street. She almost fell off balance, not because of exhaustion or the wine. The lightness at her back–the empty space where her sword and two daggers used to hang–would wear off soon, she kept telling herself. Her mission here required discretion, and her weapons would identify her to anyone she met as the assassin of the Westerosi king, so she had left them behind.

Or at least, her mission–the one to eliminate the Martell royals– _had_  required discretion. Then she saw the prince ride out one morning not long after she had arrived. The people had cheered for Oberyn, and he waved and smiled back at them like any practiced royal. It wasn’t until she had spied him training with some children in the street one day that she realized the love for his people and from his people were both genuine. And so all of her desire to finish the king’s mission had washed away, like dust after a rainstorm.

So she had spent the last week hiding and drinking herself just to the edge of oblivion–at least being Tyrion’s champion had taught her something useful–as night after night she avoided deciding what she would do next. Tonight was no different, and so Dany set off to find yet another tavern busy enough for her to nick a ewer of wine from unnoticed. As she stepped towards the alley entrance, however, a figure moved swiftly in her path.

Her hand went to the empty spot over her shoulder, and she cursed. Fumbling for her replacement weapon at her hip, she froze when she heard a sharp bark of a laugh. Another moment, and then the man in the shadows stepped forward into the dusky light.

Pale as snow, he had dark eyes and even darker hair that was pulled back, halfway, into a knot. The wine in her stomach soured when she recognized his black battle attire and the inked flames on his right cheek. He was one of  _hers_ , a warrior of the Red Witch. Her displeasure must have shown, because the man’s gaze narrowed in the slightest.

“You’ll lose,” he muttered. While she had slowly begun gripping her dagger hilt tighter, he had not even reached for the sword at his side, the white pommel a bright spot in the alley’s shadows.

“Who said I would fight?” Dany countered. “If I run, I have a better chance.”

There was that laugh again, more grunt or scoff than an actual show of mirth. “You would not run.”

“I think you underestimate my will to survive.”

“I think you underestimate my ability to tell truth from lie.”

Warning thrummed inside her. It was not wise to remain around someone who could see through her so easily. So she dug her shoes the slightest bit deeper into the red Dorne dirt and readied for battle.

The warrior straightened, and though he was not very tall, the shadows gathered around him until he seemed to occupy most of the space in the alley. Still, Daenerys did not falter– _Rhaegar would not have faltered_ –as she reached for her weapon.

She flew at him, and suddenly he wasn’t there. He had stepped an inch to the side in the blink of an eye. Irritated, she lunged again, and her blade only struck air. When she lashed out a third time, his hand caught her wrist in a cold, hard grip.

“You can continue to look like a fool, or you can listen to what I have to say.”

Dany glared at him and tugged, but his grip only grew tighter, almost painfully so. He was trying to get her to drop her dagger, but stubbornly, she hung onto it even when she felt a tingling numbness in her fingertips. With a curse, the warrior threw her hand away from him and glared at her. To repay his goodwill, she sheathed her blade, and to repay his irritation, she glared right back.

“You have something to say to me,” she prodded.

Annoyance flickered once more in his eyes before the same stone-like calm settled over his expression again. “Melisandre can aid in returning what was lost to you.”

Dany could not breathe, and she rubbed her palms on her dusty breeches, cleaning away something that was no longer there but felt like it was.  _Blood soaking white sheets, blood soaking woven mats, and her hands covered in it both times._  She prayed that her voice did not tremble as she responded coldly,  “I doubt even the Stranger himself could return all that I have lost.”

The warrior raised his eyebrows. “There is no god but one, the Lord of Light.”

Even through her pain, Dany did not miss the slightest undercurrent of bitterness in his tone. That alone made her reconsider his words. Just as the slightly inebriated, dirty woman she had come to Sunspear as was not what she seemed, this sullen man may not be the emotionless warrior he seemed.

_Which meant he may be even more dangerous than he already appears,_  her mind warned.

_All the better to follow him_ , her heart taunted.

And so Dany straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and then held out her hand for him to lead the way. He stared at her, head tilted as if asking a question he was not sure of, before striding forward into the street.

She followed him, head still held high, because she might be drunk, dirty, and entirely at war with herself, but she was still a queen after all. Even at her lowest, she might as well act like it.

* * *

After two weeks of brutal training, Dany knew better than to assume the calm-looking stretch of dry land before her was safe.

“Walk.”

She did not acknowledge Jon’s command, just continued staring at the boulder-filled field before her. A stray strand of hair tickled her cheek, but the same wind that moved it did not cause a single grain of sand ahead to shift. The back of her neck prickled at the unnatural stillness. The longer she stared at cracks in the ground and the sharp shadows of the rocks, the longer she began to feel as if something was staring back.

“ _Walk._ ”

Finally, she turned to glare at her trainer. He looked as stoic as any other training day. His expression never changed, not when she failed (which was often) and not when she succeeded (which was almost never). Since the start of their journey to the Red Palace just outside of Volantis, Jon had treated her only with indifference. She would have thought him made out of stone just like Melisandre’s foreboding castle, except he had shown how he felt about her, once, upon being introduced to the Red Witch who had made her grand promises, and to which Dany had foolishly, foolishly agreed to.

Melisandre had announced–from her great, glistening ruby throne–that she would tell Dany how to retrieve that most precious thing that had been lost to her, if only she would train with Jon to retrieve her powers that had been locked away years ago. Struggling to hide shock from her own face, for she had not expected the witch to know who she truly was, Dany had turned to see the warrior’s reaction. Jon’s face had become even paler, if that was possible, and his jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscle in his cheek twitched unrelentingly. She wavered in the sight of his anger, but when his glare turned on her–showing her not just rage, but doubt,  _doubt_  that she was worthy to train with him–Dany made her choice. She would train, so as to not only win the Red Witch’s offer, but also to prove Jon wrong.

She had not seen that doubt again in the last two weeks, but she had not seen anything in his eyes to suggest that his opinion of her had changed. Dany was getting better at fighting, but her powers had not returned. Not matter how Jon tried to make them emerge, she couldn’t force open the lock that kept them hidden.

He was never cruel about it, just unrelenting. Dany had wondered if the blood oath to Melisandre was the reason for the lack of feeling, but then she had met the rest of the warriors: Gren and Edd, Sam and Tormund. They were an odd bunch, not entirely what she had expected of the warrior cabal that was so famed through Westeros and beyond. They were also unexpectedly gregarious. Not with her, of course, but with each other. Only Jon seemed to keep himself so controlled and apart from everyone, even his brothers in arms.

He shifted his weight in impatience, and with an annoyed sigh, Dany finally stepped forward into the desolate field. This attempt to bring forth her power was no less mysterious than the others.  _The Field of the Undying_ , he had called it. She pursed her lips as stone crunched under her leather boots. The dry air sapped her lips and her skin of all their moisture. With every step she took, it grew even more deathly quiet. Sweat dripped down her neck, and she looked up at the sun, shielding her eyes with a raised hand.

She blinked, and then everything went black.

* * *

Jon fisted his hands by his sides, even though they ached. The burns on his palms would heal quickly enough on their own. Even so, his magic prickled down his arms, itching to be let out in bursts of cool water that would freeze into ice. It would sooth his blistered skin instantly, but he kept it at bay. He resisted, because all of his attention was on the woman at his feet.

Daenerys heaved up the contents of her stomach again, arms trembling as she held herself up off the ground. She had barely escaped the Field of the Undying, or rather, the shadow monster which had been lurking within. While the Field forced you to confront your past, it did not typically make you relive it. The thing that had captured her in there was a foreboding problem, one that Jon and the cabal would bring to Melisandre’s attention. For now, though, Daenerys was his main problem, given the way she shook with anger and fear even through her sickness.

Guilt pricked at him when he realized whatever she had experienced, both in her past and again just now, was horrific enough to break her pride. She was showing him weakness for the first time. His chest felt hollow, but he stayed away. It was not his place to comfort her, nor would she allow him to. Between spells, she turned to glare up at him, fierce and furious. His stomach clenched whenever he met her gaze. She accused him of so much with just a simple stare, and he finally had to look away.

“If I am killed in the process of training,” she gasped once she had her breath back, “that defeats the whole purpose of awakening my powers.”

“As I explained a minute ago, whatever happened in there was not my intention.”

She muttered a curse under her breath, and he felt a touch of irritation. “If you never awaken your powers, this is a useless endeavor anyways.”

Dany went unnervingly still. Then she rose, slowly, her spine unfurling until she was ramrod straight. She gave him one cold look before she quickly raised her hand.

“ _Dracarys._ ”

Flame erupted from her fingertips, as strong as it had on the Field, but quicker this time. She was learning. He barely had enough time to raise a shield of ice. A deafening hiss rose up as she battled him, fire meeting ice. Jon was not exerting the full extent of his powers to hold her off, but she was holding her own much better than he expected. Her technique needed work, as trying to get to him by sheer force was both too obvious and a drain on her powers. A half-smiled formed, because that was Daenerys–so direct, so unrelenting. Jon let her try to reach him for two more breaths before he began his own offensive. Her raw power was incredible, but it was no match for his hundreds of years of training.

So focused on breaking down the wall, she didn’t notice the tendrils of water creeping around the wall and behind her. When he finally felt a flicker of hesitation in her fiery blasts, he sprung his trap. A wall of water bowled her over from behind, and she barely caught herself before she was slammed into the ground. Twice she tried to rise, and twice his blasts of snow and ice and wind held her down. When she finally lay still, he eased his onslaught until it was nothing more than a few flurries and slight breeze.

Daenerys shivered as she rose, even though steam rose from every surface of her exposed skin. She was soaked to the bone, hair tangled and dripping, but her expression was even more fierce, even more resolved than before their confrontation. Jon met her gaze with equal strength as she lifted her head, proudly. It stunned him for a moment, the sheer regalness with which she carried herself. The Westerosi king must have been blind not to recognize her as who she was, the true heir to the Iron Throne.

“I am not  _useless_ ,” she spit at him. Her voice echoed off the boulders, loud and proud and the essence of commanding. “I have never  _been_  useless, and I will never  _be_  useless. I am Daenerys Stormborn, of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name. I am the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea and Breaker of Chains. I trained with the Dothraki fighters and I freed a thousand slaves from the ports of Slavers’ Bay. I am Queen of the Andals and the First Men, and I  _will_  restore my family to their rightful throne, even if it costs me everything that I have, everything that I am.” She paused, choking a bit, then continued in a soft but deadly voice. “I am  _anything_  but useless.”

Jon simply stared at her, taking her in, all of her in, as he thought  _there you are._  The way she stood taller, spoke harder. He slowly realized she had only been playing the part of queen before. Now, she simply  _was_  a queen–ferocious and impassioned, demanding and regal. It took his breath away.

“You are not useless,” he murmured, then turned on his heel and walked away. Two steps, and then he shifted into his wolf form and ran, and ran, and ran, far and fast.

* * *

No matter how far or how fast he ran, however, Jon hadn’t been able to outrun his feelings for Daenerys. He had tried to keep his distance during training, but after their fight in the forest, it was near impossible. She began opening up to him, and shockingly, he felt compelled to do so in return. The words fell almost unbidden from his lips, the stories about his human life, how he died and then become immortal, how that immortality had bound him to Melisandre’s service. He even told her about Ygritte–about loving her, and losing her. To be that open and honest with someone was equal parts thrilling and terrifying, but Daenerys accepted it all, all of him, quietly and gracefully. And she confided equally painful secrets with him. She told him what the shadow monster had made her relive, and he almost wept at the tale. A queen was not exempt from true loss, he learned. Thus it was even more rewarding for him the first time he made her smile, and then laugh. It had felt like a fire was burning in his own chest when he saw those sights, and he never wanted that flame to run out.

That fire was alight in his chest even now, atop the castle walls and amidst the chaos of battle. He tried to keep the flames burning by remembering what Daenerys– _Dany_ ,  _Dany, Dany_ , she had insisted–looked like when she smiled. It was the only possibility that she would one day smile again that sustained his strength even after cutting down dead man after dead man after dead man.

The Night King had chosen the most opportune time to attack, with Melisandre and the cabal both away. It infuriated him that he had not foreseen the assault, but there was nothing to do now but fight. Dany had been the first to sound the call to arms, and Jon had hated her for it. Not because of her dedication to protecting those inside the castle who could not protect themselves, but rather for the dangerous task she took on with such bravery. As soon as the alarm had sounded, she had insisted on holding the front line. He had argued that fighting outside the gates, outside the wards, was too dangerous, but she did not heed his warning. Instead she had looked him straight in the eye, silent, and he had understood: this was what she was meant to do, what she was born for.

Daenerys Stormborn was a protector, and who was he to stop her from that destiny.

But as he stood on the ramparts now watching her, he was filled with endless fear and fury. Fear, that she was losing the battle raging below him, and fury, that she seemed marked for such a fate. She was bleeding, bleeding and fighting, fighting and  _losing_  down below. She was almost at her burnout point, and Jon could not get to her. From the set of her shoulders, she knew it too, but she kept on spewing flame to hold back the King and his army of the dead.

Letting out an infuriated cry, Jon took out his anger on the enemy around him. He sliced through one after another. So wrapped up in his onslaught, it took Edd shaking him to realize that the victory bells were ringing.

“We fuckin’ did it,” he yelled. “We fuckin’ held the castle.”

Jon hadn’t even realized the cabal had come. They had heeded his call, even possibly in the face of Melisandre’s refusal, and he felt an overpowering surge of kinship. They had come for him, when he needed it the most.

Then a searing scream pierced the air, and the sound of it shot ice through Jon’s veins.

_Dany._  She needed him, most, now.

He turned from Edd and charged for the front gate. The sight of Dany on her knees and the Night King standing over her only made him run faster. As he drew closer with each stride, the ground started to shake under his feet. He thought about shifting to reach her more swiftly, but only in his Fae form could he fight the Night King. Drawing up his power, he conjured a blistering wind from behind to help him along.

When he was halfway there, the stone beneath his feet cracked–not from ice, but from heat. Skidding to a halt, he stared at Dany as he realized the earth was moving not because of dark magic, but because of light. A halo surrounded the lost queen of Westeros, and it made the Night King retreat a half step. Jon watched as Dany slowly rose to her feet, arms stretched out to her sides. A low hum filled the air, and it rose, and rose, and rose, until a shrill whine rippled out, out,  _out–_ and then she erupted. Enormous, blistering fire exploded from each of her outstretched palms, twisting and turning in on itself until it took shape. Until it became living, breathing creatures of flame, two dragons made of the fire that she carried in her bloodline.

Dany had not hit her burnout. She had merely pushed past whatever lock she had imposed on herself since that terrible night where she lost her parents and eldest brother in the coup. She was beautiful and fearsome in her blaze of glory, as she finally embraced her full heritage. The two beasts she created immediately attacked the Night King, and as he battled them, Dany lifted her arms above her head. With a bone-deep battle cry, she let loose another burst of flame, her largest yet, to create a third dragon. Jon felt his knees weaken at the sight, both from the terror of her creation–it was made of blue-black flame–and the magnificence of her power.

The dragons were her weapons, and she stood her ground as she concentrated on defeating their enemy. Only because Jon was watching her, and not the battle, that he realized her frame was trembling. She might have unleashed her full potential, but that meant she also might reach the end of it very soon.

Without thought or hesitation, he approached her, reaching the knife at his side as he did. By the time he stood in front of her, he had already slashed his palm. Blood dripped onto the ground and bubbled on the heated stone. He looked in Dany’s eyes and asked his question.

_Will you let me help you?_

The curving corners of her mouth answered,  _I will._

Dany stretched out her palm as well, and he made a mirroring slash across her own palm. Neither hesitated as they clasped hands, and Jon felt his power rise up to meet and feed hers.

With fire, she would turn their enemy back, and with blood, he would help her do so. Because she was his queen, his  _carranam_ , and the woman he loved, and only together would they come through this battle alive.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, kudos and comments would be much appreciated <3


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